


Strangers Now

by FestiveFerret



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Dorm Rooms, First Kiss, First Loves, Fluff, M/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Sam Wilson, Reunions, Smitten Steve, reconnecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-24 15:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13216503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret/pseuds/FestiveFerret
Summary: Back in elementary school, Tony Stark was Steve's whole world school until Tony's parents packed up and moved him to LA. Steve hasn't seen him in ten years, and then he bumps into the kid living in the dorm room across the hall - and it's Tony.But Tony doesn't remember Steve.





	Strangers Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cap Iron Man Community](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cap+Iron+Man+Community).



"He doesn’t remember,” Steve said, slamming the door behind him and spinning around so his back was against it.

“Who doesn’t remember what?” Sam asked around a piece of licorice. He was leaning back in his chair, his feet up on Steve’s side of the desk. He had his new biology textbook open in his lap and was flipping through it backwards.

Steve shoved Sam’s feet off the desk and collapsed in his own chair. The cheap dorm room furniture creaked under the assault. “Tony Stark doesn’t remember me.”

“Who is Tony Stark?” Sam turned another page in his textbook.

“I went to school with him - elementary school.” Steve tugged a licorice out of the package and chewed on the end. It tasted like red plastic. He made a face at Sam, but kept chewing. “He moved away, halfway through fourth grade. We were best friends all through third and fourth, and then his parents moved to LA. We tried to write each other letters, but kids are awful at that stuff.”

Sam cocked an eyebrow. “I thought Buck was your best friend in elementary school.”

“Not until after Tony left. Bucky was my neighbour so we knew each other, but it wasn’t until after Tony left that we really bonded.”

Sam laughed. “I should be grateful to the dude, then. If you and Buck weren’t friends, you couldn’t have introduced me to him.” He waggled his eyebrows.

Steve bit off another piece of the candy and scowled. “Yeah, I’m _so_ happy for you. It's especially great when you two make out all over my things.”

The textbook hit the bed with a soft noise. Sam had somehow to unpack all of his stuff while Steve’s half of the room was still a mess of boxes. Sam waved his next licorice in Steve’s direction. “So he doesn’t remember?”

Steve pushed a hand through his hair, scraping with his nails. “Nope. I just bumped into him in the hallway. It was definitely him. I didn’t even know he went here, but he must be the Tony that’s across the hall. People are always leaving notes for him on his whiteboard.” Steve’s chest constricted. His asthma hadn’t bothered him for years, but it felt like an attack coming on. “Holy shit. He looked right at me, and nothing. He really doesn’t remember me.”

“What’s the big deal? If he doesn’t recognize you, just tell him. ‘Hey, man, we went to elementary school together, good times, right?’ What’s wrong with that?”

Steve stood and flopped back onto his bed instead, staring up at the dorm room’s popcorn ceiling. There was a lot wrong with that. “Yeah.. you’re right.”

~~~~

Tony waltzed into Steve’s third-grade class on the first day like he owned the place, and it had taken all of a week for him to become Steve’s whole world. It was a split class, and Tony was one of the older kids but had miraculously taken a shine to Steve despite his too-baggy, second-hand clothes and lunches that lacked the colourful treats the other kids traded. Whether it started because Tony pitied him or not, it wasn’t long before their friendship was a real one. They passed notes through math class - since Tony was going to do Steve’s math homework anyway - spent all their recesses together, and when Tony noticed that Steve’s lunches didn’t have colourful treats, he started bringing two.

They’d been the only ones to find out that a copse of trees at the back of the playground had a secret tree cave inside them, if you were willing to push through a smallish gap between two trunks. They spent the whole summer riding their bikes in the quiet streets of Steve’s neighbourhood and playing superhero to Steve’s cat’s supervillain.

By the time Steve was halfway through grade four, and Tony grade five, they were inseparable. 

And Steve had a secret.

He’d realized it a couple months ago, but he hadn’t said anything to Tony, wondering if it would stop on its own. But it hadn’t, and as time went by, and being around Tony became harder and harder without saying something, Steve decided to bite the bullet and tell Tony the truth. He’d made up his mind to come clean a couple times, and then, whenever he found himself actually alone with Tony, he’d wuss out. They'd been put in another split class, either by luck or because the teachers couldn't bear to part them either. So, this time he forced himself to write a note halfway through math class and handed it back to where Tony sat behind him. No backing out now.

_I have to talk to you at recess._

A second later something bumped his fingers - Tony’s hand - and a folded piece of paper was shoved into his palm. Steve took the note and unfurled it.

_I have to talk to you too._

That was… scary. Steve wondered if Tony wanted to talk about the same thing he wanted to talk about. Maybe he’d noticed that Steve had been different lately, and he didn’t want to be his friend anymore.

The rest of math class was torture. Steve folded and unfolded the note in his hands, until the paper was torn and soft and illegible. Mrs. Baker’s voice washed over him in a wordless mush, the only clear sound in the room the ticking of the clock on the wall as it counted down.

When the bell rang for recess, Steve barreled out of the classroom and made a beeline for their secret tree cave. He hovered there nervously, waiting for Tony to arrive. Tony never barreled anywhere, but Steve wouldn’t have been able to bear the slow walk at his side without saying anything.

“Hi.”

Steve looked up, Tony was standing just outside the trees, twining and untwining his fingers. Steve’s heart did a skip-jump in his chest that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with Tony’s wide brown eyes and soft smile. “Hi.”

Tony finally wriggled in between the trees and leaned back against one of the large trunks. “You should go first,” he said.

Steve swallowed hard. Half of him desperately wanted to go first, so he could explain, so he wouldn’t have to hear what Tony had to say if it wasn’t nice. The other half never wanted to go at all. Ever.

Tony’s head tilted to the side like a curious dog. “It’s okay, Steve. You can tell me anything.”

“Um. Okay.” Steve tugged a piece of bark off one of the trees and started shredding it with his fingernails. “So. You know how Bruce has a girlfriend?”

“Yeah, Betty? She’s nice. What? Do you like her or something?”

Tiny pieces of bark trickled down onto the dirt under Steve’s feet. “Um no. I like someone else.”

Tony smiled. “Who?”

“And, um, it’s not… a girl… I don’t think I like girls at all.” Everything stopped, and Steve felt the way he did when he slammed on the brakes too hard, as if he was going to tumble forward over his handlebars.

“Oh.” Tony’s eyes went wide. “You like a boy?”

“Yeah…”

“Who?”

Tony didn’t seem bothered, but Steve didn’t want to say who until he knew how Tony felt about the whole… boys thing. “It doesn't bother you?”

Tony shrugged. “Why would it bother me? I like boys too. And girls. I had a crush on Ty for like a year. But then I met Pepper, and I loved her too much to remember Ty.”

Steve nodded. Tony was basically an expert on love, he’d understand. Maybe he’d know how Steve was supposed to make it stop. “Okay, good.”

Tony poked Steve in the top of his scrawny arm. “Come on tell meee. I won’t rat you out.” His grin was huge now. Huge and beautiful and everything Steve wanted.

“It’s you,” Steve threw out before he could stop himself, talk himself out of it again.

Tony blinked at him for a second. “Oh. I thought you meant _like_ like. I like you too, Steve. You’re my best friend.”

Steve could only find half of his voice. “I did mean _like_ like…”

“Oh.” Tony’s face melted into despair. “Oh… Steve…”

Steve was filled with the urge to run - get out of there. Just bolt, anywhere and not stop until he couldn’t run anymore. But with his asthma, that probably wouldn’t even be to the other side of the playground. “Sorry,” he muttered, not sure what he was apologizing for.

But then Tony was right up in his space, close enough that their arms were touching. “No. Don’t be sorry. That’s not -” Tony worried his bottom lip. “I’m leaving…”

Steve shifted away, as far as he could with the tree at his back. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground. “Okay.” He sighed. Tony didn’t want to be around him anymore. He tried not to be hurt, but it felt like someone had taken an ice cream scoop to the centre of his chest.

“No!” Tony’s hand snatched out and clutched Steve’s arm in an iron grip. “Steve, you’re not listening to me. I _have_ to leave. I’m leaving New York. That’s what I needed to tell you. I’ve been trying to tell you for a week, but I just… couldn’t. My parents are moving to LA, and I have to go with them. I told them I could just stay here with Jarvis, but they won’t let me.”

Steve’s eyes finally found Tony’s. He looked… He looked heartbroken. “No, you can’t go. We’ll - we’ll convince them somehow that you have to stay. What about school?!”

“They have another school for me. I’m going to boarding school in California, I guess.”

“No…” They fell into silence, eyes locked on each other’s. Steve’s confession didn’t seem to matter anymore, not in the face of this. “When are you leaving?”

Tony didn’t answer right away, scuffing his shoe in the dirt. “Tomorrow morning…”

“What? Tony, what? That soon? What about summer… what about - we were going to go camping - and my mom said you could sleepover every weekend if you wanted...”

“I know…” Tony made an unpleasant noise, and Steve wondered if he was going cry. He felt like crying himself, but recess must be almost over, and he didn’t want to go back to class with wet cheeks and red eyes.

He took a deep breath and rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes to stop them from leaking. “Can you come over tonight? My mom will make spaghetti.” Steve wanted to pull Tony to him and never let him go. How could Tony’s parents do this? California was all the way on the other side of the country. It was as far away as Tony could possibly be.

But Tony shook his head. “No, my dad is taking us out for one last dinner here, and then we leave really early so they’re making me go to bed at some horrible time. I already asked if you could come to dinner and he said no.” Tony sighed heavy enough that his shoulders heaved. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. I was hoping they’d change their minds and leave me here after all. They don’t even care that they’re ruining my life!”

“This sucks.” Steve sunk down until he sat on the dirt, his back against the tree. He’d probably get in trouble for getting his pants dirty, but he didn’t care. Tony settled in beside him, shoulder to shoulder.

“Yeah, it does.”

“Can you come visit maybe?”

Tony brightened. “Of course, I’m going to come visit. We can still go camping and I can sleepover for a whole two weeks! You could come to California too. In the winter maybe - it’s warm there when it’s cold here.”

“Okay. Good. And I’ll write you letters.”

Tony beamed up at Steve, and he struggled to find his next breath. “Okay. I’ll call you as soon as we get there and give you my address.”

“Okay.”

The bell rang and they both shuffled back to their feet. Steve made to shove through the gap in the trees but Tony grabbed the sleeve of his shirt, stopping him. “You’re always going to be my best friend, Steve. Forever.”

“Same.”

Tony grinned and leaned in a little towards Steve and his heart went wild. Was Tony going to kiss him?! Bruce had kissed his girlfriend by the swings the other day, Steve had seen it happen. But then the second bell broke through the silence, and Tony pushed Steve towards the break in the trees again. They walked back to class together.

Tony’s parents came to pick him up at the end of the day, and Steve had watched as they’d put Tony’s bike in the trunk of the car. Tony looked at him for a long time, but didn’t say anything, and a moment later he was being dragged off to the car, his eyes still fixed on Steve.

Steve watched them drive away.

~~~~

“Sorry, is this yours?”

Steve spun around and came face to face with Tony. God, he was so beautiful. There was no sign of recognition whatsoever when he looked at Steve. Steve tried not to swallow his tongue, ten years of twisted up feelings flying up to the surface fast enough to send him reeling. “What?” Good start, Rogers.

“This.” Tony held up a sock. “Is it yours? I think it fell out of your basket.”

“Oh.” Steve looked down at his laundry basket, half-emptied into the machine. Tony Stark was standing there holding his dirty sock. Jesus Christ. Steve ripped the sock out of Tony’s hand and shoved it into the machine. “Thanks.” Steve suspected that he was currently the colour of a humiliated beet, but Tony was still smiling kindly at him.

“You’re lucky you have any left at all,” Tony said with a laugh. “I swear they train these machines to eat them on purpose.” He shot Steve another smile, and the only word for what Steve did next was panic. He laughed - too high and too loud - and bolted. He abandoned his laundry, muttering something about coming back for it later, and flew down that hall and up the stairs to his room. He slammed his way in and immediately grabbed Sam’s phone out from between his ear and his shoulder.

“What the fuck, man?!”

Steve held Sam off with one hand and put the phone to his ear. “Bucky? I fucked up.”

Bucky sighed through the phone. “What’d you do this time, Stevie? It’s pretty hard for you to pick fights with guys twice your size anymore. I’m not sure they exist.”

“Worse. I ran into Tony again and made a complete fool of myself.”

Bucky _laughed._ “Just talk to him, Steve. Did you talk to him?”

“No, I bailed. He touched my sock.”

“Well, that’s weird,” Sam said from the other side of the room.

“I wasn’t wearing it.”

“Nice.” Sam gave him a thumbs up.

“Not like that!”

“You guys strippin’ down already? Dude. You work faster than I remember,” Bucky said.

“I - _god - not like that._ I was doing my laundry. Ugh. This is so messed up. Why doesn’t he remember me?”

Bucky made a sympathetic noise. “It was a long time ago, Stevie…”

“Yeah I know… Nevermind.” Steve tossed the phone back across the room, and Sam caught it. Sam rolled flat on his bed and put the phone back to his ear. Steve slipped his headphones on, drowning out Sam’s conversation with his boyfriend.

Of all the schools in the country, why did Tony have to end up at  _this one?_

~~~~

They did write. For a few weeks. But then Tony moved to the boarding school, and Steve was buried in homework every night, struggling to pass math without Tony, and more and more time stretched out between letters, between phone calls that were hard to connect with the time difference.

When Steve started grade five, he was alone, and it didn’t take long for the jerks and bullies to realize that he was an easy target. Tony’s charisma had protected him for two years, but without Tony as a social shield, Steve was armourless.

He spent most of his recesses in his tree cave, sometimes writing letters to Tony that he probably wouldn’t be able to find a stamp to mail, sometimes drawing pictures or writing little stories.

“Is there someone in there?” A gruff voice asked, and Steve stiffened, his hand tightening on the paper he was holding. He waited, but no one appeared in the gaps of the trees.

“There is!” The voice exclaimed. “Aww, it’s the babies playing with their dolls.”

Steve pressed his eye to the gap in the tree and saw Brock and Alex standing in front of the space between a big concrete block where the dumpsters were locked up at night and the wall of the building. Two kids, a few grades younger, were huddled in the gap, playing with action figures. Steve set his papers down and waited, watching.

Brock crouched down low, getting in their faces. “Can I see that?” He grabbed one of the toys out of the kid’s hand and pretended to snap it in half. Both boys twitched towards him, whimpering, but they wouldn’t say anything to the bigger boys. Steve was out of the gap in the trees and across the pavement before he even knew what he was doing.

“Leave them alone!” he called, and Alex and Brock both turned to face him.

Alex crossed his arms over his chest. He had about four inches on Steve. “Or what?”

Steve put his fists up like he’s seen the boxers do on TV. “Or whata’ya think?”

It only took one hit from Brock to put Steve on his ass. His cheek exploded with pain and he knew there’d be a bruise there he wouldn’t be able to hide from his mom. He wanted to curl up in a ball in his tree cave and never talk to anyone again, but then Alex and Brock would go back at the other kids, and he couldn’t let them do that. He tried to struggle to his feet but a hand landed on his shoulder.

“Would you two piss off?” A new voice said.

Steve looked up. It was his neighbour, James. Steve pressed a hand over his cheek and glared up at the two bullies.

Alex rolled his eyes. “Come on, Bucky. Look at this loser. He’s asking for it.”

“I said fuck off, alright?” James flinched towards them, and they jerked back. He laughed, their bluff called, and they stormed off, muttering to themselves. James hooked a hand under Steve’s armpit and hauled him to his feet. “Hey, Stevie, you alright?”

Steve frowned. “No one calls me that anymore.” James had been his neighbour for a long time - their moms used to have tea when they were babies.

James shrugged. “You’ll always be Stevie to me.”

“Whatever, I had them, you know. You didn’t have to save me, James.”

James laughed. “Sure you did.” His eyes twinkled. “And no one calls me that anymore.”

They’d been best friends ever since.

It wasn’t the same as Tony, of course it wasn’t. In some ways, Bucky was easier to be friends with. He didn't make Steve’s breath catch or his heart pound in his chest. He didn’t stand for Steve’s bullshit, and he pushed him to push himself as hard as he could. Bucky was safe and easy and he was as stuck here as Steve was so he wouldn’t be leaving him for some fancy new life in California.

At home that night, his mom had wrapped a bag of frozen peas in a washcloth and pressed them lightly against Steve’s eye. She crouched in front of him. “You never used to get in fights,” she said softly.

“I used to have Tony.” Steve frowned. “Nobody wanted to mess with us.”

Sarah’s eyes crinkled sadly at the corners. “I’m sorry, honey. Don't you have any other friends?”

Steve thought about Bucky coming to his rescue today. “Maybe.” He shrugged. “It’s not the same."

“Do you want to call him today?” she asked, but Steve shook his head.

“He has class still, until I’m in bed already. Time zones suck.”

His mom brushed a hand through his hair, then stood and pressed her lips to Steve’s forehead. “I’m really sorry about Tony, Stevie. I know you cared about him a lot.” Steve looked up and caught her eye. There was something there he’d never seen before. He nodded. “He wasn’t really like other friends, was he?” she pressed. Steve shook his head. His hand was getting too cold where he held the peas against it, but it felt good on his eye. “He was special…?”

Steve squirmed in his chair. Something hung heavy in the air between them. “Yeah…” he finally admitted, unable to meet his mother’s eye again. But she didn’t say anything else, she just bent over to kiss the top of his head, then turned back to the stove to finish dinner.

The next morning when Steve trotted down the steps and out into the street to head for school, Bucky was there waiting for him.

~~~~

The first weekend of school, Tony threw a party, and Steve went home. Sam texted him party updates while he hid at his mom’s house, unable to face Tony, but sure he wouldn’t have been able to say no if he’d been invited along with the rest of their floor. So he’d packed up the laundry he was too afraid to do at school now and took the subway home to where Sarah still lived in Brooklyn.

“Mom, I’m home!” he called, shoving through the door with his laundry bag.

“Bucky with you?” she yelled from the back room.

“Not this time!”

Sarah Rogers appeared in the doorway. “Hi, honey!” She beamed at him and kissed his cheek. “How was your first week? I’m surprised you wanted to come home so soon.”

Steve shuffled, and Sarah’s eyebrow cocked. She could always read him like an open book. “There might be… a thing.”

She set her tea down and settled into the chair opposite. “Tell me everything.”

“Do you remember Tony Stark?”

His mom’s eyes went wide. “Of course I remember him. You two were inseparable. You were… very upset when he moved away.” There was something knowing in her voice.

Steve sighed. “It was pretty obvious, wasn’t it? I had a huge crush on him. He’s the one who made me realize…”

Sarah smiled gently. “I always wondered. The way you talked about him was so affectionate, a little starry-eyed. He was good for you. I was so sad when he moved away. I called his parents a few times, asked if he could come stay with us during the summer, but he was always in science camp or something… and I couldn't afford to send you over there. And then you stopped talking about him and I didn’t want to push it.”

“We lost touch. It was too hard, across the country and with him in boarding school. I didn’t want to talk about him because it was too painful.”

Sarah got up and set the kettle heating again, grabbing a mug for Steve and tugging down a box of cookies. “So why do you bring him up now?”

“He lives across the hall from me.”

“What!? Oh my, what are the odds?” She beamed. “You can reconnect after all these years! That’s amazing.”

“I know… I can’t believe it. But, mom… he doesn't remember me.”

“Really? Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. You two were so close. I’m really surprised to hear that.”

Steve sighed, accepting a cookie from the package. “Me too. Anyway, he’s throwing a party and I just couldn’t face it, so I’m hiding here for the weekend. Sorry.”

Sarah pushed a mug of tea across the table. “Don’t you dare, I’m thrilled to have you home. You can hide here anytime.” She kissed his forehead, then winked. “I’m not doing your laundry though.”

~~~~

Steve pushed through the door into Bucky’s bedroom, his college information packet tucked under his arm and a pen between his teeth. The second he stepped through the doorway, he dropped the papers and slapped his hand over his eyes. “Oh, for _fucks sake, Buck!”_

He heard rustling and giggling and then a hand patted his arm. He opened his eyes and Sam was standing in front of him looking sheepish. “Sorry man.”

Steve glared at the two of them and their rumpled clothing. The image of Sam straddling Bucky on the bed, hands pawing up each other’s shirts, mouths locked, was going to be in his mind forever. “Seriously. I do not need to see my brother like that. It’s traumatizing.”

Bucky laughed then pushed off the bed to reach out and ruffle Steve’s hair until he batted him away. He had two inches and twenty pounds of muscle on Bucky now, but that didn’t stop Bucky from treating him like the scrawny nothing he was when they were kids. Bucky hooked his arm around Sam’s waist and hauled him close, pressing a kiss to the side of his face. “You two twerps are going to go off and get all smart and I’m going to miss ya. Gotta get my snuggling in while I can.”

“On your own time, soldier. Sam and I have forms to fill out.” Steve raised an eyebrow at Bucky and he released Sam, holding his hands up placatingly as he sat back down on his bed.

Steve and Sam worked their way through their information packets, filling out their roommate preference forms with a request to be roomed together and picking classes with growing excitement.

“Do you want to sign up for Facebook?” Sam asked. “We have our emails now, we could connect with other people in our programs before we get there.”

“Sure, sounds good.”

Sam powered up Bucky’s computer and grabbed a bag of Skittles as he waited for the website to load. They both joined and set up profiles, then spent some time on the university website. Eventually, Sam had to go. He leaned over to press a goodbye kiss to Bucky’s lips, Steve turning back to the computer as one kiss turned into several, complete with groaning.

Steve poked Facebook idly, adding some people he’d known in high school as friends and scrolling through their profiles. He added a teacher from elementary school that he’d always liked and meant to update with how he was doing, and the little bar on the side with “People You May Know” popped up with a new name.

Tony Stark.

Holy shit. He hadn’t thought about Tony in a while… well, that was a lie. He thought about Tony all the time, but as this mythical missed chance, his first love, his first kiss and then… nothing more. He didn’t really think about him as a real person in the world. He never thought he’d see him again after they lost touch. He’d tried to find him, briefly, in high school, but with no luck.

And now, here he was. It was definitely him. He looked surprisingly the same, though older, of course. But his eyes were the same, even in his tiny profile picture, Steve could tell. Steve’s heart skittered around in his chest, and he was stunned that after all these years, a picture of Tony could have the same effect on him that the real Tony always had when they were kids.

Steve hovered over the Add Friend button for long enough that Sam was long gone and Bucky called out “What are you doin’ over there, Stevie? Don’t look at porn on my computer.”

Steve clicked the button before he could back out, then shoved back from the desk. He glared at Bucky. “I wasn’t. I was just trying to figure out Facebook.” He logged out before Bucky could demand to see what he was doing. “I’m starved, let’s go eat.”

It was hours before Steve was back at his place, and he could turn on his ratty old laptop and check to see if Tony had friended him back. Maybe Tony sent him a message. Maybe he was as excited as Steve was to reconnect.

He had several emails from Facebook, with all the setting up and friending he’d done, but he ignored them all, clicking through to Tony’s profile directly.

Friend Request - Pending.

Oh.

Tony probably hadn’t seen it yet… but what if he had, and he didn’t want Steve to be his friend? Maybe he had no desire to reconnect.

Maybe their friendship - only two years long and so so long ago - hadn’t meant as much to Tony as it had to Steve. He’d moved on, made new friends, probably fallen in love. Maybe that last night, hidden up in Tony’s treehouse, was always meant to be the end.

Three months later, Steve packed up his room, his life, and piled into a car with Sam, headed for their shared dorm room and an entire new world. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but every time he went on Facebook he would visit Tony’s profile, just to see.

Friend Request - Pending.

~~~~

Steve rounded the stacks, eyes on the paper in his hand, scrolling through the required reading and trying to figure out which section he was supposed to be looking in, when he walked right into Tony Stark.

“Shit,” he bit out before he could stop himself.

Tony’s eyebrow quirked up. “Not most people’s reaction to seeing me, but alright.” He smiled. “Howdy, neighbour.” Tony had a massive stack of books in his arms for everything from avian biology to fluid dynamics.

“Ah, sorry. I just, um, wasn’t looking where I was going?” Steve tried to shuffle away without making it too obvious he was retreating. Tony was going to start thinking he was crazy if he ran every time they spoke.

“No worries. Booklist?” Tony gestured to the pages in Steve’s hands.

“Ah, yeah, I was looking for the poetry section.”

Tony bumped Steve’s arm with his. “Oh, I know where that is, come on, I’ll show you.”

“Oh, uh…” Steve scrambled for an excuse to say no, but nothing came to mind. “Thanks.”

“I don’t think we’ve officially met,” Tony said. “Though I am intimately acquainted with your laundry now. I’m Tony Stark.”

 _I know._ “Steve Rogers.”

Tony stumbled over his next step. “I knew a Steve once,” he said, with a hint of wistfulness in his voice. They arrived in the poetry section, and Tony stopped, gesturing Steve towards the books.

“Um.” Steve hovered by the books awkwardly, eyes pointed towards the titles, but not reading them. Tony did remember? “Yeah, I think that was, uh, me.”

“What?” Tony eyed him suspiciously. “Uh, no. This was a long time ago. And he was a tiny guy. Different last name. Jones.”

Steve could feel his cheeks heating. He hadn't even thought about the name thing, shit. Of course... Tony didn't know. And how would he recognize Steve now? But Tony really did remember. “Yeah… that was me. Rathford Elementary School? The tree cave? Notes in math class...? I, uh, filled out a bit.”

Tony’s mouth dropped open. “What the…?”

“My dad left, shortly after you did. And my mom changed her name back to her maiden name, to Rogers. And I insisted she change mine too, apparently. So we’d be the same. I don’t really remember, but yeah. That was me...”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Tony said, eyes wide. Then he clapped a hand over his mouth. “Oh my god, that was you who tried to Facebook me. I - fuck, I’m so sorry. I didn’t recognize your name, and with my parents being kind of famous, I get a lot of friend requests.”

“Oh.” Something settled softly in Steve’s chest, something he hadn’t realized had been floating around in there unsteadily all this time. “That’s okay, I understand.”

“I totally would have accepted you. Fuck… Steve. I can’t believe this. We live across the hall from each other.” He laughed almost maniacally. “I can’t believe it’s you…” His eyes were bright with something beautiful and unnamable.

Steve took a deep breath, trying to keep the world from tipping right off its axis. Tony was here and he remembered and he was happy to see Steve again. “It’s me.”

~~~~

Steve sat on his bedroom floor, a box of every note he and Tony had passed all year clutched in his lap. On top was the worn, smudged, _I have to talk to you too._

Tony was leaving tonight, and Steve might not see him for a long, long time. It didn’t feel right. He should have hugged him at recess. He should have said something at the end of the day. He couldn’t just leave it like this.

Steve shoved the box to the floor and grabbed his jacket. Tony had said they were going to make him go to bed early and it was already dark, so he had to be home and in his room already. It was a long trip, and he wasn’t allowed to be out this late, but he didn’t have a choice.

The TV was on in the living room so Steve slipped past the doorway as quietly as he could. He pulled the front door open inch by inch, grateful for his small stature for the first time as he squeezed through a gap in the door. He unlocked his bike from the porch railing, his heart pounding in his chest as he expected his mother to appear behind him at any moment. But she didn’t.

He biked as hard as he could, as fast as he could. And he realized with surprise, that it was a lot harder and a lot faster than he used to be able to. Two years of keeping up with Tony had built his breath and hardened his leg muscles.

He made it to the subway in a record five minutes and bumped his bike awkwardly down the steps. Steve was terrified that someone would stop him and ask him what he was doing out late, alone, but no one cared.

Less than an hour later, Steve finally pulled up in front of Tony’s fancy Manhattan mansion. He pushed around to the back of the building, finding Tony’s bedroom window in the mass of imposing glass. He shoved his bike against the fence and snuck across the garden, dodging the security light sensors. He picked up a rock and took aim. Steve might be slow, weak and asthmatic, but he never missed. The rock smacked against Tony’s window with a loud _thunk._

Steve waited, not wanting to risk another one, and a moment later, Tony’s face appeared at the window. His eyes fell on Steve, and he broke into a huge smile. He held up a finger, and Steve nodded. He scurried along the fence then climbed the ladder up into Tony’s tree house. It was five whole minutes before Tony was able to sneak out and into the yard. Steve saw him slinking across the yard to the tree house.

“Steve! What are you doing here?” Tony whispered shoving in close beside him.

“I had to say goodbye.”

Tony’s face fell. “I don’t want to go.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I can’t stay out long.” Tony’s eyes flicked towards the house. “But I’m glad you came.”

And then Tony was in Steve’s arms, wrapped around his neck, his face pressed into Steve’s shoulder. Steve tugged Tony deeper into the hug without hesitation. He buried his face in Tony’s wild hair and breathed in. He was never going to forget the way this felt. Tony’s shoulders shook, and Steve knew he was crying. He wanted to cry too, but somehow he held back. It would be too easy to lose this moment to tears when he wanted to focus on Tony instead.

They stayed that way for a long time, clinging to each other. Tony slowly soaking his way through Steve’s shirt. Eventually, Tony pulled back and wiped his face with the backs of his hands. “I should go back in… my mom will check on me soon.”

Steve’s fingers caught on the edge of Tony’s shirt sleeve, and he couldn’t let go. “Don’t…” But he knew he had to.

Tony took a breath, then looked up into Steve’s eyes. He smiled brilliantly. “You know, Steve, I _like_ like you too. Maybe you can be my boyfriend this summer? I’ll come visit.”

Steve grinned back. “Okay.” He slipped his hand down Tony’s arm and twined their fingers together. Tony’s hand was warm in his, and it sent his heart racing. “I’d like that.”

Tony tipped forward, up onto his knees and pressed his lips to Steve's for just a moment. Butterflies exploded in Steve’s stomach. Tony pulled back, blushing, then scrambled back to the ladder. “Bye, Steve.”

“Bye, Tony.”

And he was gone.

Steve made it as far as the street corner before he broke down completely, tears cascading from his eyes, no way to stop them. He fumbled his way into a payphone and dialed collect. His mom picked up after two rings. “Mom?”

“Steve?! Where are you?”

“I went to Manhattan… can you pick me up?” Steve could hear how shaky his voice was, knew his mom would be able to tell that something was wrong, but he couldn’t hold it back. He had nothing to hide behind. He knew she would know where he was.

There was a pause, a breath of a sigh, then, “Of course, honey. Stand under a streetlamp, I’ll be there soon.”

“Thanks.” Steve hung up and pushed out of the booth, sliding backwards against the nearest streetlamp until his butt hit the ground. He pulled his bike up against his legs, and he cried.

~~~~

They stood in the library for a long time, just staring at each other.

“Uh,” Tony started. “Do you want to come back to my room? Or something? So we can talk a bit, maybe catch up?”

“I’d love that.”

Tony brightened, and Steve remembered the way he would light up. It was the same.

“Awesome.” Tony dropped his books on the table and walked out, Steve in tow. Steve shot the books a nervous glance, hoping they weren’t something Tony needed, but Tony was on a beeline back to their dorm, and Steve didn’t want to lose track of him.

Again.

“So, tell me all. Where did you go after Rathford?” Tony asked.

On the walk back to the dorm, Steve told Tony about Bucky, about high school, about everything. He kept having to circle back and explain something he’d missed, like Sam showing up in high school and he and Bucky falling for each other hard, but by the time they hit the dorm steps, he thought he’d gotten through the highlights.

“Wow.” Tony paused at the top of the steps, fumbling for his keycard. Steve pulled his out first, always in his back pocket, and leaned around Tony to hit the keypad with it. Tony’s eyes tracked the movement, widening as Steve leaned in close. “And now you’re here.”

“And now I’m here. On a scholarship. Studying English.”

“Amazing.”

“What about you?”

They’d reached their hallway, and Tony pushed his door open, urging Steve in. His room was similar to Steve and Sam’s, but it was a single and looked distinctly more lived in. Tony sat on the bed, and Steve hovered by the door awkwardly. Tony’s desk chair was covered in books, but should he -

Tony patted the bed next to him, curling his leg up under him and leaning back against the bookshelf at the foot of the bed. Steve sat at the other end, near Tony’s pillow, leaving careful space between them. Everything in him screamed to close the distance, and he could believe that after all this time he still felt that draw to Tony.

“Well, I did go to boarding school, which you know. And then they fast-tracked me into a gifted program. They moved me to another private school pretty soon after that. That’s when we lost touch, I guess. I wrote you a couple times but they came back as a wrong address.”

“Oh yeah, we moved. I tried calling you at school a couple times to tell you, but they said you didn’t go there anymore so, yeah I guess that was what happened.”

“Sorry. I should have tried harder to stay in touch, but everything was kind of a whirlwind at the time.”

“It’s alright. I didn’t do a very good job either.”

Tony shrugged, then stretched back against the bookshelf, long and lithe. Steve tried to keep his eyes on the calendar pinned to Tony’s wall, but the strip of skin exposed when Tony’s shirt rucked up was too distracting to ignore. “My life has mostly been jumping from school to school. I’m doing my graduate studies here, but I like living in the dorm so I’ve stuck around here.”

“Wow. Graduate school, that’s - wow.”

Tony shrugged again then fell silent. His eyes landed on Steve and wouldn’t shift. They stared at each other for a long time.

“I thought you didn’t remember me when I saw you in the hall on the first day and you didn’t say anything,” Steve said quietly.

“Oh, shit Steve, I remembered you alright. I just didn't realize that you were you. You’re uh a little different.” He smirked.

Steve’s cheeks heated. “Yeah I managed a bit of a growth spurt in high school, then my friend, Bucky, got me into working out and running.”

“Well… it worked.” Tony’s voice was oddly twisted, and when Steve looked over, he caught Tony staring at his chest. His eyes flicked back up to Steve’s face, and he leaned forward, shifting up so his legs dangled off the edge of the bed, moving him close enough that they were almost touching.

“Do you remember the night you left?” Steve asked, voice barely more than a whisper. But Tony was so close now that it didn’t need to be.

“Of course I do. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much in my life.” Tony chuckled to himself. “I tried to hide, in the morning, hoping if they couldn’t find me they’d just leave me behind. I had this big plan to move in with you.”

“I would have liked that.”

Tony laughed deeper this time. “Your mom wouldn’t have.”

“Sure she would have. She always liked you. She would have taken you in.”

“That would have been a nice life.” Tony's eyes dropped to where his hands twisted together in his lap, a small smile brushing across his face.

“Hey, Tony?”

“Mm?”

“I never got the chance to say thank you. You were the first person I ever came out to, and if you hadn’t been so cool about it, I might not have been able to do it again. But you gave me the confidence to be myself, and I’ll always be grateful for that.”

Tony's eyes went wide and soft. He gazed at Steve, moving even closer. Steve was hyper-aware of every scant inch between them. “I’m glad I got to be that for you, Steve. It would have been pretty hypocritical of me not to be cool, though. Since I felt the same way.” Tony paused. “You were my first kiss, you know.”

“What? No way. What about Ty and Pepper?”

Tony waved a hand dismissively. “Nah. I had a major crush on Ty but he never liked me back. Pepper liked me back, but honestly, I was so gone for you it didn’t really matter. I liked her, sure, but it was nothing to what I felt for you. It was actually quite a while before I had a second kiss.” He flashed Steve another one of his brilliant grins. “Wasn’t as good as the first.”

“Tony, you were my first everything. First real friend, first kiss, first... love. And, uh, the last actually. I’ve dated a bit, in high school, but I’ve never felt for anyone what I felt for you. I, uh, still - I mean, I know we don’t really know each other anymore, but, god… it’s like… feels like yesterday.”

“I know what you mean.” Tony shifted a little closer, and Steve was ten years old again, in a treehouse, heart beating out of his chest. He bent down to meet him and their lips met, soft and easy. It was different this time, they were older, they knew what they were doing, but the way it made Steve feel like he’d run a marathon, like a whole team of butterflies were doing the cancan in his stomach - that hadn’t changed. Tony pulled back and grinned. “Even better without all the crying.”

All the tension that had been building in Steve’s chest for over a decade, finally bubbled out of him as a burst of wild, manic laughter. He couldn’t believe this was really happening, after all this time. Tony tugged him in and kissed him again, kissed him through the laughter and kept kissing him until he was too breathless to laugh anymore. “Tony…” He took Tony’s face between his hands. He was never _ever_ letting him go again.

“Hey, Steve, I know it’s like, ten years too late, but I was thinking… maybe you still want to be my boyfriend this summer?”

Steve brushed his thumb over Tony’s cheek. “Hmm, I don’t think so. Last time we tried that, you disappeared on me. How about you be my boyfriend now?”

Tony grinned, lighting up the room. He was everything Steve had missed, had lost, had loved. “Perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> For the Community Gifts Prompt: _“you kissed me on the playground the day before you moved away in the 4th grade and now your dorm is right across the hall from mine” au_


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